So close yet so far
by December Ice Star
Summary: A mission gone wrong changes everything for Hinata, Sakura and TenTen. Three years go by without a word from them. What would you do for the one that you love the most? NaruHina NejiTen SakuOC WARNING RAPE/NON-CON
1. Chapter 1

**Hello there! If this is the first time you read this fic, welcome if it isn't, I'm sorry for taking almost a year for updating, I am truly sorry. I just had to figure out where this was go****ing and let me tell you it was one hell of a ride. But I'm back :] **

**A/N**

**Chapter 1 - Lost**

She was breathless.

Her ribs ached, her head throbbed and her legs felt as if a thousand flames were twisting and crawling inside them.

She had managed to lose them, but that wouldn't last long. They would catch up on her and she knew it.

Pulling her last kunai from her pouch she hid behind the ruins of what once was a house. She crouched and leaned against the wall, trying to catch her breath. Her head fell forward and long blue hair covered her dirty and bloody face. Slowly she raised a shaky hand to cover her stinging eyes. Constant use of her bloodline had exhausted her.

Her headband was uncomfortable. She was sweaty and tired and the weight of the headband that was usually comforting felt too heavy. Bloody hands untied the headband and left it on the charred ground.

They were a week late. Hopefully backup was sent but she knew it was unlikely. They had sent a message saying that they were helping the little village that was now destroyed and they might be late. They wouldn't miss them for at least another week. Maybe five or four days if they were lucky. But luck had proved not to be on their side on this mission.

She let out a shaky breath. She had to get out of there. _They _had to get out of there, fast.

Tightening her hold on the kunai, and throwing a last glance to her headband she raised and moved out of her hiding place. Her eyes moved quickly, searching for enemies. A groan escaped her when she moved too fast and the wound on her abdomen opened again. She pressed her hand against the wound trying to stop the blood. It was pointless; it kept on flowing out of the wound and slipping through her fingers.

She started walking cautiously to where she had last seen her friends. A whimper stopped her mid-step. She turned her head to hear better and waited. Another whimper. Her eyes moved toward the origin of the sound and took in the blood leading to a bush. It could be a foe… or a friend.

Her lips tightened into a line as she weighted her options. If it was just a trap, she was too weak to defend herself, but if it was a friend… she just couldn't let someone she knew die because she was afraid. Slowly she made her way to the bush…

…and stopped, raising her hand to cover her mouth in shock.

_Oh God…_

Sakura looked as though someone had tried to rip her in half; a large cut on her lower abdomen was pouring blood onto two puddles at her sides. Her bright pink hair was fanned underneath her head in the grass. Her emerald eyes were open and unblinking, staring to the trees above her. Tear tracks were clearly visible against the dirt and blood staining her face. Her hands were over the huge gash as if trying to stop the crimson liquid from escaping her.

Hinata fell to her knees next to her. She let the kunai slip through her fingers and focused on her friend. With shaky hands she reached over to Sakura's neck. Maybe if she could find a pulse… there was one. Weak and erratic but there was a pulse. She closed her eyes, trying to gather as much chakra as possible. She was no medic-nin but she knew enough.

She couldn't do it. No matter how hard she focused she couldn't bring any chakra to her fingers. Angry tears formed in her eyes; she couldn't help her, all she could do was watch her childhood friend die.

Sakura's unfocused eyes seemed to recognize her face.

"H-Hi-na-ta…" she managed through coughs. Blood from her mouth fell to her pale cheeks.

"S-Sakura.. I-I c-can't…" Hinata said between sobs.

"It… it-t's o-okay. R-Run. L-leave…" Coughs shook her frame and she reached to take the Hyuuga's hand. "F-find TenTen… l-leave…"

"I can't leave you here!" She refused to let her friend die alone. The desperation that clenched her heart stopped her usual stutter. Sakura's eyes looked weakly into her own pale ones.

"Y-you have to… t-they… they'll b-be back s-soon…"

"I can't-" she stopped herself. She had heard something. It was barely a rustle of clothes but it was enough. She looked around. And there he was. His Sharingan shining on the darkness. And he was not alone. His partner stood tall next to him with TenTen's body slung over his shoulder in almost a careless way. Hinata's eyes widened and more tears flowed down her cheeks.

She wouldn't make it.

The certainty that she would never make it back home settled heavy on her shoulders. She had hold on the last silver of hope that they would go back to Konoha. That they would be able to see their friends and family again. Her hope crumbled and burned under the gaze of the Sharingan.

Even if she tried to run, she would never out-run them. They were faster, stronger and she had no chakra left.

"No…"

_I'm sorry…_

The man holding TenTen smiled mockingly and the other one moved to fast for her to react. A rush of pain, a scream and everything went black.

_I'm so sorry…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2 - Incomplete**

Looking back, he can only remember pain and tears and determination.

When Tsunade forbade him from leaving to look for them, he almost left the village anyway. Kiba and Shino stopped him, saying that he wasn't the only one that cared about them and that the Hokage would not appreciate him leaving against her orders. So he stayed and waited.

The track team returned three weeks later with nothing but a bloodied headband and vials filled from the puddles of blood they had found but no missing friends. They had found _puddles _of their best friends' blood. Naruto raged and complained and argued but even he had to accept that if the best trackers in Konoha couldn't find a trace then neither could he.

That was his last sane memory before everything faded in a never ending blur of missions and death and dead ends and frustration. He vaguely remembered Kakashi yelling at him and Jiraiya knocking him down but it's like watching a mute movie. You can see everything happening, you see people talking to you but you can't hear them and their words don't touch you.

He remembered sitting in Ichiraku's staring at a cooling bowl of ramen and Neji next to him, a glass of sake in his white-knuckled grip. He remembered turning to laugh with someone that wasn't there and spending four hours looking around the village when he thought he heard a soft, shy voice before the ANBU knocked him down and tied him to a chair in Tsunade's office.

He didn't remember the things Kakashi won't forget, like finding his student sitting under the rain at three AM talking to empty air. Kakashi remembered every cut, every broken bone and every splatter of blood he saw in Naruto before he left again for another mission.

When Tsunade refused to give him more missions, he didn't even blink. He nodded and left and wasn't seen again for three days before someone had the good sense to call Neji, who found him at Team 8's old training grounds and quietly thought that no one really tried to find him, so easy it was.

He remembered a lot of things and knew that what he was doing wasn't healthy but he was completing missions and helping people and if some of the deaths could be avoided, well, no one really knew about that.

It felt like seeing everything through a curtain, thin enough like to get a glimpse of what laid beyond but so thick that it couldn't reach you. The curtain is lifted three years later when he comes back and sees a shock of pink, pale eyes and long brown hair.

And if their eyes are a little harder and their hands a little more scarred and their faces not completely honest…

He doesn't finish that thought and stretches his arms towards them.


	3. Chapter 3

**So, it's my birthday tomorrow and I thought I'd gift you guys with new chapters in all my fics, begining from this one. Hope you like it and please review!**

**This is the first of a series of backflashes from their time imprisioned.**

**Chapter 3 – Part I**

_6 months, two weeks, four days._

She backed into the cell and tried desperately to hold back the panicked breaths that were pushing their way through her throat.

Noise only made him angrier, she knew that but still a whimper escaped him when she saw him approaching her dark, musty cell with a leer on his thin lips.

The former Konoha ninja could only claw the walls in desperation as he pulled the keys from his belt. The sharp smell of copper crashed through her when her movements broke barely healed skin and pieces of nail were left stuck in the wall. She barely registered the pain.

A panic attack, her mind helpfully provided.

_Tremors on hands, palpitations, sweating, nausea, hyperventilation, paresthesia on lower limbs._

The treatment for panic attacks was crushed under waves of panic and the certainty of what was going to happen. Her legs gave out and she curled into a ball on the corner, trying with all her might to melt into the stone.

The door opened and tears began falling down her face.

"Let's see if I can make you scream again, little leaf."

-.-

Hands trembling, she curled into herself, trying to will the pain away from her. She didn't even try to cover herself with the rags her clothes had become.

"Are you ready to talk now?"

Dull green eyes didn't react. Not even a blink.

Sakura Haruno lied on the ground, her back raw from the friction against the stone, legs and arms a sick patchwork of purple, green, yellow and angry red.

"Guess not. See you again in three days, little leaf."

Hours after he left, she sat straight, wrapped her arms around her knees and stayed that way for the next 16 hours of her captivity.

-.-

How long had it been?

How long, how long?

A month? A year?

How long, how long?

Two years? Three?

When she finally remembered, she blinked twice and forgot again.

_Or at least tried to._

-.-

They had tried to cut her eyes out, or at least scare her into thinking they would.

Hinata's beautiful pale eyes were surrounded with infected wounds crisscrossing her high cheekbones and eye sockets. She could smell the rot from across the hallway. Her clothes were in an even worse state than her own. Her pale skin was marked with hand-shaped bruises on her wrists, her arms, her hips, her long elegant neck. Long dark hair was stuck into her head with clumps of blood and grim.

Two guards dragged her limp form from the "interrogation room" back to her cell.

Sakura chose to close her eyes and allowed herself one tear for her broken friend.

-.-

The sixth time she heard Naruto's voice, she ignored it beautifully.

They fooled her the first time but not again. Her eyes remained closed, for she knew that if she opened them, Naruto would die on some horrific way in front of her, most likely splattering his warm blood all over her.

_Naruto, Sasuke, Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Neji, Lee…_

The list went on and on and whoever was making her see their deaths had quite and imagination for no death had been the same. They were all different, different kinds of horror and pain. She managed to numb herself from them.

She would not give them the pleasure of a reaction.

She would not fall, would not break.

-.-

The medic nin was going crazy.

She knew long periods of time under the stress and pressure would eventually twist the mind so far it would snap. She would not be the first ninja to return mad. If she ever returned, of course.

So every day, she began her day with a recount of things she could feel. The gaping slashes on her skin, the dull throb on her abdomen, the lack of nails on her fingers, the thick scar running across her abdomen, those were all real. The flowers in the corner of her cell, the lights around the edges of her vision, those were not real.

She had to hold on to that because if she didn't…

The thought was left unfinished.

-.-

The blade bit into her skin and Sakura dimly wondered how something so small could cause that much pain. It finally stopped and she had a second of respite despite knowing that they had probably stopped when it reached the bone.

She saw his hand tighten around the knife and knew he would twist it around. When he did, she wasn't surprised but the feel of it still took her breath away and tore a scream from her sore throat.

-.-

How long, how long?

_How long before you break?_


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – Part II**

_10 months, three weeks, six days_

The liquid that had been injected into her bloodstream forced her Byakugan to activate despite the ridiculously low levels of chakra. One glimpse and she began cataloguing her injuries.

Torn biceps femoris muscle, severe bruising on left thigh, three broken ribs, two on the left, one on the right, dislocated shoulder, lacerations on left arm, second degree burns on both shins and third degree burns on both feet, without mentioning the internal bleeding. Minor bruising on wrists, biceps, hips, knees and neck along with a sprained wrist and ankle. Consequences: impossibility to run or bend knees, ability to run or attack: neutralized, would probably die from internal bleeding in approximately 36 hours without treatment, not enough time to get to a secure location with medical staff. Probability of escaping the base and reaching Konoha alive: 3.4666%

(Her cousin may be the genius but the heiress is no fool.)

They'd been injecting something in her eye every day. She didn't know what it was; all she knew was that it burned a path from her left eyeball to her brain, leaving it sore for the next 23 hours, dulling to a faint ache in hour 20, only to begin again with the next dose. From the reflection of the silver table with syringes and vials and _dear God, was that a human head?, _she could see her left eye had darkened to a dull gray, the fain outline of the pupil more visible than in the other eye.

Every day, after they left her in her cell, she ran her fingertips around her eyes and could feel the bulging veins around her left eye socket and the deep, still sensible scars around both. The vision from her left eye often left her dizzy. It had begun after 26 injections, a dim mix of colors that disappeared when she blinked. It had grown steadily until it was as clear and solid as the people it surrounded.

Everyone was outlined with an undercurrent of color but she didn't know what it meant. Civilians were outlined with dull colors like dark blue or light grey but ninja had such a wide variety of colors ranging from light blue to an impossibly pale gold, almost silver. She tried to find a discernible pattern and every day a new hypothesis was dismissed. They did not change according to chakra levels, because two ninja with almost the same levels of chakra had very different outlines. The Hyuuga thought that maybe personalities were involved but she was not about to begin talking to her captors just to see if that was a main factor.

If she was in a room with more than five people at a time the blur of colors would give her a headache and she had to close her eyes for a few minutes while her brain tried to process information she hadn't been able to see before.

Unlike the chakra paths, the colors were always visible, ignoring her chakra reserves and remained unchanged when the Byakugan was activated. Her all-seeing eyes were suddenly far more seeing than they used to be and Hinata was torn between being absolutely terrified and interested on the new data it provided.

(It went unsaid that they would not do something to her eyes that _they_ could not use in the future.)

When she was first led to the 'lab' they had severed the muscles behind her knees and broken both wrists. She couldn't stand; the thought of attempting to escape didn't even cross her mind with both hands useless and her eyes blurring from the infection.

They had slashed their merry way through her cheekbones and then allowed them to get infected, withholding treatment until she was a shivering mess of tremors and puss running down her face, barely capable of breathing from the sheer pain of it, the skin red and swollen. (Possible septicemia.)

She had been keeping a careful count of the days/weeks/months she had spent trapped there but lost count when the fever began. It couldn't have been that long or she would've died but she estimated ten months and decided to only count the months, the (_309_) days were just too depressing.

(Tsunade had probably already written their names in the memorial.)

Another syringe approaching her eye, she vaguely wondered if they knew how far she could see with her Byakugan. She supposed they didn't for they kept activating it and each time she learned something new.

_Underground base, seven floors, currently in floor five, five possible escape routes, all guarded, route #2 with only three guards (two chunnin, one jounin), Sakura in floor six along with Tenten (cell third on the right and last on the left), approximately 138 people on the base ranging from civilian to ANBU level, no sign of any Akatsuki member, other prisoners kept on floors two, three and four, surface level empty._

'This time I'll count the ANBU level ninja.'

She had made the math and estimated that it would take from three to four months to catalogue all the ninja in the base. That was alright, she had all the time in the world.

(Another 309 days.)

_Or more._


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5 – Part III**

_13 months, one week, three days_

Tenten could feel her mind crashing down. If there was one thing they taught you on how to survive torture, was that you'd break, everyone had a breaking point, a button to push, and absolutely everyone would break given enough time. All you had to do was live long enough to convince them that you truly don't know anything to get a clean death or hold enough for someone to rescue you.

And Tenten could hardly think of something as useless as that in her current situation. They were torturing her, true, but they weren't asking anything, they didn't want anything from her, no mission reports, no maps of important Konoha buildings, no trading routes, nothing at all. Because they didn't want information, they just wanted her to break. And god, were they coming close.

She could almost feel the way her thoughts became more and more disperse, slipping like smoke between her fingers. There were whole days that she didn't remember; only knowing that they had passed because of the increased number of open wounds on her arms. She would touch her face and feel scratches on her cheeks but they had respected her face until now, why would they scratch her face? They didn't, those were self-inflicted and she couldn't even remember it.

Even her own village was starting to get blurry. She remembered things that she knew couldn't have happened. Memories of Naruto attacking her, red eyes and dripping fangs. Of Neji beating her into submission in front of the Hyuuga Elders, his pale eyes shining with hate. That couldn't have happened, because she still remembered stolen kisses and hidden smiles in a locked dojo. She could still feel his lips against her skin and his calloused hands on her waist. Everything was still there.

But it wouldn't stay there for long. Every second that passed by, her memories got more and more twisted. She knew that, eventually, she would be overwhelmed by these visions of blood and death and there would be no one to make her recall things as they used to be. Given enough time, she would become a willing traitor of Konoha.

_Why shouldn't you betray them? They never appreciated you. For them you were always the sad little orphan girl, with no money and no home to go to, sent to the Academy because there was nowhere else to send you to. Always looking at you with pity, with hate, the teachers always going easy on you because you were to _weak _to be evaluated like the rest of the children. You are nothing there. You mean nothing to them._

The kunoichi was pretty sure that whatever was making her go crazy it came with the food. She was never injected and the instruments used to torture her were never coated with anything. The food was the obvious answer. Problem was, she couldn't stop eating. If she did, she would get weaker which would either accelerate the process or kill her. She was rather fond of living, thank you very much.

Besides, she had to figure out what the hell was their objective by making her go mad. Because along with her memories, her abilities were getting tangled too. They made her reflexes tests, checking her reaction time and it was getting worse. She began moving a sixth of a second slower that she used to and now she took two full seconds in registering the kunai heading her way. She assumed that the chemical messing with her head was affecting her muscle memory as well. Her reactions now had more to do with instinct than training, slashing with her fingernails instead of blocking the attack, her movements more and more unrefined.

So she _had _to figure out their reason before she was as useful as a civilian.

_You'll be as worthless as your parents, killed like lambs. I bet they didn't even fight back._

In conclusion, things were going badly, considering of course that she had been kidnapped, beaten, raped and overall humiliates in every way a human being can be humiliated. On top of that, her mind was turning against itself, tearing it by the middle and breaking everything that made her Tenten.

She would lose herself, she knew it. Eventually, she'll be nothing but a shell of what she once was. A watercolor copy of a masterpiece. A sad, twisted creature that would betray friends she couldn't remember and turn them in to their enemies. Every training, every lesson, every jutsu, every weapon her beloved village had given her would be used to harm them. And she wouldn't be able to stop it, she would flourish under the blood of the Konoha nin, laugh while she slit pale throats with even paler eyes, revel on the torn headbands and members. She would be a monster.

_Nothing more than a monster._


End file.
